Chapter 2471: Gates of Adol
The sense of suffocation that blanketed the universe, ironically, affected the stronger beings more, and the weaker beings less. The more that one could sense laws, the more they felt the absolute danger that the laws seemed to carry right now.
By now, the other six Archons also realized that Eclipse was about to do something absolutely crazy, and that they should try to stop her. No one knew what the consequences of messing with time would be. No one could afford an accident that affected the whole universe.
Unfortunately, at this point, there was no one in the universe who could stop Eclipse either. In fact, Eclipse was looking forward to them trying to stop her, because then they could share the burden of the universe’s strain.
After all, once Death unleashed his power, the universe punished him by putting a certain amount of its strain onto him. The rest was being pushed onto Destiny. If they attacked, they too would need to unleash their full strength, at which point Eclipse needed only to survive until they were punished by the universe.
By that point, the strain would be divided among all of them, making her task even more likely to succeed.
In hindsight, so much made sense. The reason Eclipse had been hiding, keeping the universe from maturing, was simply because at that point the strain would become too great, not to mention that the laws of the universe would become far more complex. It would make her attempt to turn back time even more difficult.
That also explained why she had been destroying Mature realms lately. The more realms that were destroyed, the less strain there would be left on the universe. Eclipse must have calculated exactly how much strain she needed to remove for her plan to work.
The deaths of so many Dao Lords also served a similar purpose. She could eliminate them, reduce the burden on the universe, while also eliminating the chances that her enemies could retaliate against her.
The effectiveness with which she infiltrated so many organizations and gathered such a large army, all without alerting most of them was entirely unprecedented. Not a single one of the Archons had deduced that Eclipse was behind everything happening, or what her goals were.
Truthfully, even now, all her goals may not have been revealed, and she may have countless cards waiting to be played. Thus, despite the abundantly apparent danger, not a single one of them stood out against her now. Neither did the Sage races, or even the Primal race attempt to stop her.
At this point, could they even do anything. Even Asux, the Primal Monarch, was helpless when confronting Eclipse, not to mention... Elizabeth seemed to be secretly helping Eclipse as well. What could he even do?
Thus, when Eclipse took the next step, she did so without any obstacles whatsoever.
More and more power gathered within the Arena, and the universe became even more suffocating until, finally, Eclipse took out a sundial made entirely of gold.
Lex merely looked at it and recognized that it had a subtle hint of the Timekeeper’s aura. Lex wasn’t quite sure what was happening, because the stream of time rushing out of his body and the sundial with the Timekeepers aura suggested that he was working with Eclipse.
However the fact that Nulli thought that she had killed the Timekeeper suggested otherwise. Moreover, there was something definitely off about that guy when Lex had seen him inside his forehead back then, not that he cared too much.
The massive torrent of time rushing out of Lex’s body was also rapidly increasing Lex’s insight and understanding into the law of time at a rate that was basically impossible to replicate. Besides, Eclipse probably had things covered on her end.
Eclipse connected the sundial to the ritual, and almost immediately the universe shuddered. Destiny looked up and screamed, but at this point no sound came out of her throat. It wasn’t that her throat was too sore, but that she could no longer control her body at all at that point.
Her very existence had become the pivot upon which Eclipse used her technique, with Death sharing a small amount of her burden.
Faint grains of sand rose from Destiny’s body, each one cycling through the colors of the rainbow before dissolving into the air.
Meanwhile Lex seemed to feel like the universe had stopped. It was like he was in zero gravity, except it wasn’t just gravity that seemed to have stopped working. Everything seemed to have become weightless, and for a brief time, Lex was incapable of having any thoughts at all.
Above the sundial a small, black hole appeared, connected to absolutely nothing just yet. Eclipse, slowly, cautiously, reached out to it and blanketed it in her hand while channeling a thick, highly concentrated stream of Primordial Energy into it.
Lex watched, his mind empty of all thoughts, as the Primordial energy grew the black hole larger and larger, causing various colors to finally appear within it.
The universe shuddered once more, and this time even more violently. Cracks appeared on Destiny’s body, causing more and more grains of sand to fly up into the universe. Lex could not think, but he instinctually felt like those grains of sand were healing any wounds or injuries the universe suffered at the cost of Destiny’s health.
Meanwhile, Eclipse kept growing the hole larger and larger until it became as large as a person. Within it was an abstract mix of colors, forming nothing yet hinting at the possibility of something.
Eclipse paused for a moment, as if even she needed to gather herself before what she was about to do.
Nulli turned around and glanced at her. Although she did not break off from the ritual, there was no way she was going to miss the sight of what Eclipse was about to achieve. She could watch recordings of it later, sure, but there was nothing that could replace watching it with her own eyes.
A feat that even she, as a Primordial Nullith, could not achieve, was about to be done by Eclipse.
The two friends locked eyes for a moment, as if only they could understand everything that had brought them here. While the weight of the moment could be felt by all beings immortal and above, only they knew the actual cost of turning it into a reality.
"Today my dream... will become reality," Eclipse announced to no one in particular, but Nullith nodded, as if confirming it.
Eclipse took out a small, purple orb. The thing was tiny - too small to even act as a jewel on a wedding ring - yet the aura it contained was more powerful than even the Dream Arena. If the fog had not been protecting the observers, mere exposure to that orb would have killed most of them, and crippled the Dao for those that survived.
She brought the orb to the hole, and the universe seemed to come to a halt. Destiny froze, light froze, laws froze. Only Eclipse, Nulli and the hole remained unaffected. But the hole was no longer just a hole - it was a doorway to an instant long past.
*****
Though he was bleeding golden blood, and though there was a sword of silver sticking out of his chest, struck from the back, Lunareth did not waver. He slammed down with both his hands clasped together, using them as a hammer to destroy the corrupted totem!
Behind him someone screamed, and more blades found their way into his body. By now, after facing war, after facing betrayal, after facing the death of all hope, he should have been broken beyond all doubt, yet even in reality even his back did not bend.
"You will find no salvation in the Chalice, remember that," said Lunareth as he channeled pure moonlight into a single javelin. "The Well, too, is a path to corruption. The only chance left is for you to imprison all that are corrupt beyond the Gates of Adol, and turn it into an eternal prison."
No one seemed to be listening to his words, for they were all furiously attacking him, but that did not stop Lunareth in the slightest. He lifted his javelin, aimed it far beyond the borders of the Primal realm and at the thing known only as Entity.
It was a massive city, larger than many realms, made entirely to devour Vaelûn and everything it held, empowering only the system host within its center - a mere puppet at this point.
Despite the torrent of attacks falling down on him, he threw the javelin with his full might, distorting reality and ushering into reality new universal laws to facilitate the flight of his javelin, thus giving rise to the concept of unreasonableness.
An axe cut Lunareth’s neck before he could see the javelin land, finally causing his knees to buckle.
As his vision dimmed, and his consciousness faded, Lunareth began to hallucinate, or else how could he at this moment see the little lass Eclipse, smiling at him as she reached out.